Why it works: Plum and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 168 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
British Brandy, to Improve the Flavour Op
Ingredients
Directions
Place the French plums in a stone bottle.
Pour the British brandy over the plums.
Let it steep for ten days.
Strain off the brandy.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Plum + brandytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together168 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- French plums
- Release their flavour and natural sugars into the brandy as they steep.
- British brandy
- Acts as the solvent, drawing flavour and colour out of the plums while preserving them.
The step that matters
Let it steep for ten days. Steeping time controls how much flavour and colour the brandy extracts from the fruit. Stopping early leaves the infusion weak, while the fruit's flavour continues to extract slowly over the full period.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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